


Chasing Spring

by Gimli_s_Pickaxe (orphan_account)



Series: Chasing Spring [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: God!Merlin, M/M, Powerful Merlin (Merlin), Quests and Journeys, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25935301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Gimli_s_Pickaxe
Summary: Uther's execution of a high priest of the Old Religion leads to the wrath of the god Emrys, and Camelot is trapped in a never-ending winter. Arthur Pendragon, unbeknownst to his father, embarks on a quest with his trusted knight Leon to free Camelot from the god's curse, braving snowstorms and bandits left and right.On his way, though, he meets Merlin: a mouthy boy with startling blue eyes who may be much, much more than he seems. And, as much as he may try, Arthur can't stop himself from gravitating towards him - even as he knows that Merlin hides a secret, one that may come back to bite him in the arse before long.A tale of quests, wyverns, winter kisses, smiting, reconciliations, and, perhaps, love.[CAN BE READ AS A STANDALONE]
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Chasing Spring [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885876
Comments: 89
Kudos: 569





	Chasing Spring

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write a God!Merlin fic since forever, and I can't believe I actually got around to writing it. :) Unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine - and that said, please enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: All I own is the plot.

1.

A good prince should do what is needed for his people.

Arthur would like to think that he is a good prince, if a bit pig-headed at times.

That is why Arthur knows that he is going on a Quest.

“Please, Leon,” he wheedles, and winces right away at his tone. He sounds like a five-year-old whose mother has told him he can’t have any sweetmeats today. It certainly doesn't help that Leon probably remembers him still as a snivelling toddler with snot on his face. “I need you. Please?”

“You’re going on a quest,” Leon says, pressing the heels of his palms into the sides of his head as if to ward off a headache. The glare he sends Arthur makes it very clear whose fault exactly the said headache is. “And your father doesn’t know.”

“Well, yes, it would go down so well with him : Sire, I’m going to seek out this god Emrys and ask him nicely to undo this horrible curse he’s put down on us! Maybe we’ll all become great mates and everything will be sunshine and rainbows now! - He’ll have my head on a platter before you could say ‘cheese’.”

“Ask him nicely?” Leon asks, arching a brow. He looks disturbingly like Gaius when he does that, and Arthur makes a mental note to make sure the two aren’t spending any more time together than absolutely necessary. Gaius’ eyebrow of terror is a horror in and of itself; two of them is simply unimaginable.

“Alright, beg,” Arthur sighs, swallowing his pride. “But this is supposedly some all-powerful god. He doesn’t count.”

“If you say so, sire.” Leon’s face makes it very clear that he’s simply humoring Arthur. But Arthur isn’t a good commander for nothing, and he knows when to strike a tactical retreat. Namely, now.

“So.” Arthur is back to business now. He’ll go with or without Leon, because he is just plain stubborn that way, but Leon has been like a stout tree throughout all the trials Arthur has faced up to now. He isn’t exactly lying when he said he needed him. “Will you help me or not?”

“I don’t know, sire,” Leon says, and his voice is the weariest that Arthur has ever heard. “It’s a beheading in the least.”

A pang of discomfort twinges through Arthur’s heart, then, because he’s realized what exactly he’s asked of his trusted knight : to betray the very king he has served faithfully all these years, to go behind the back of his king, all for some hare-brained quest he’s concocted.

It isn’t a hare-brained quest, though. For all that Uther tries to quash rumours before they take root, the tale of Emrys’ curse is well-known throughout the land. A high priest killed in cold blood, the spite of a god who lost a faithful follower and dear friend, all in one fell swoop.

These long years of winter Camelot has faced cannot be the work of a mere sorcerer; Arthur knows that much. No human has the power to hold summer at bay for years upon years. The people know, too, and Arthur has a niggling feeling that it’s only months away at the most before they explode into a full-fledged rebellion.

The firelight highlights the wrinkles about Leon’s eyes. They’re slight, but there, the faintest hint of crow’s feet, and Arthur realizes with a jolt : Leon is growing old, too. He looks impossibly weary, right this moment, but Arthur knows, deep down, what Camelot needs. He winces in apology but meets Leon’s gaze head-on, repentant but firm.

Leon, Arthur knows, has never been able to tell him no. Not when Arthur had wheedled him into carrying a baby Arthur in full armed regalia on his shoulders all the way into the darkling woods, not when he’d bullied Leon into swapping all the fowl on his plate with Arthur’s soggy mashed potatoes. Today, it seems, is no exception.

Leon sags.

“You are a bloody little terror,” Leon declares, perfectly serious, “sire.” The honorific is more of an afterthought than anything else. “Heavens may know why I even listen to you at all.”

“Maybe because I’m your prince,” Arthur declares, summoning all the pomp he knows himself to be capable of, and Leon bursts into laughter.

Everything is going to be fine.

Arthur knows.

*

Everything isn’t seeming so fine, a few days later, as Arthur and Leon trudge through the blinding snow. Snowstorms like these have been becoming more and more frequent these days, winds that cut like a butcher’s knife and blinding white that leaves a man with no sense of up, down, or front.

Emrys’ anger must be simmering and slow, because the eternal winter that holds Camelot under its thrall shows no sign of abating. It’s a miracle that Cenred or any of the neighboring kings haven’t got it into their heads to barge in with an army and have Camelot done away with.

It’s a matter of time, though. Which is why Arthur hopes with all his heart that his quest hadn’t been so ill-advised after all.

The past few days have been a whirlwind of activity, scrounging up everything he could find on the elusive god with the help of Gaius, the castle’s healer, whose dabblings in pagan rites weren’t half as subtle as the old man had hoped to be.

“Emrys,” Gaius had said, the reverence in his voice belied only by the slight tremor in his hands. “He is said to be the greatest immortal to ever walk these shores.”

“Greatest?” Arthur had asked, dumbfounded. It had been a cold day then, too, as were all the days in Camelot these days. A particularly strong gust of wind rattled the cast-iron windowpanes of the fortress, and Arthur winced. “Father just had to go and rile up the ‘greatest,’ didn’t he?”

“Grief drives us to great lengths, sire. As you can see.”

Arthur can see well enough, all right. This absurd purge Uther carries out in his mother’s name, for one. This horrifying spell of winter that had apparently begun the day a high priest of the old religion was killed, another.

Arthur supposes he can’t really blame the god. He supposes Uther wouldn’t have been half as judicious in his use of power, if he had been the one to possess it.

“Who exactly is Emrys, anyway?” Arthur had asked, curious. He did need the information for his quest, because if he was so lucky as to actually run across the god himself or any of his acolytes, he doesn’t want to do something stupid to offend them and mess this all up. He is also genuinely curious too, though – because the purge was not limited to people alone, and all books on pagan rites were burnt on sight during Uther’s reign.

The lore, Arthur had come to realize, was bloody fascinating.

“The beginning and the end.” Gaius’ voice had been solemn, and Arthur had grown quiet at that too, because there was something in the old man’s voice that commanded sanctity, reverence, almost like a priest presiding at a place of worship. “He is the bringer of spring, the scythe of winter. He is the eternal, the cycle of life and death.”

Arthur held his breath for a moment, then let it out in a hissed puff. “That’s an awful lot.”

“Emrys is an awful lot.” Gaius had said, his voice wry. “Your father was not wise to disregard William’s warnings so blithely.”

“He warned my father?” Arthur asked, curious. “Why would he warn someone who was trying to lop his head off?”

“Why indeed.” Gaius sighed. “But warn he did. He warned about how angered the god would be, how Uther was doing something he would regret for years to come. The king – did not listen.”

“Oh.” Arthur should know; his father rarely listens to him either, and that is on the best of days. There had been a strange glint in the old physician’s eyes, and Arthur had half-turned, a question dying on his lips. “Were you – there? That day?”

Gaius had smiled then, somehow looking impossibly old and frail, a relic from another time. “Perhaps.”

Their time had nearly been up, that day; Arthur had to head back to his chambers if he was not to be suspected of something untoward. He had to ask one last question, though, so he did.

“Wait. Gaius, before I go – if I ever actually do meet this ‘god’ - ” The word sounds strange on his tongue, and Arthur winced, just a little. “How would I know it is him?”

“You could not be certain, sire,” Gaius says, regretful. “But – lore has it,” and Arthur listens, primed for any hint that will help him along on this quest of grasping straws. “He oft takes on the shape of a young man.”

2.

“Arthur! We must find shelter!” Leon calls, his voice strained above the howling of the wind. Arthur is snapped out of his reverie and curses. The winds have picked up, almost a shrieking gale now, and if they stay out longer they are going to be frozen straight to their bones. The thick fur that pads his armor is just about as ineffective as limp fish right now; it’s soaked right through and on its way towards turning into bristling ice.

“The map,” Arthur gasps, quickly calling up the image to the forefront of his mind. Thank – someone, for all those gruelling hours of memorization Uther had forced him through. “There should be a village – not far.”

Leon nods, and they brace themselves, dragging their horses through drifts and snowbanks that would have swallowed a lesser man. Arthur hadn’t been wrong; after a few more minutes – or hours (it is hard to retain a sense of time, when all you can see is white and all you can hear is that incessant whine of the wind) – of grueling trudging, they manage to make out the faint winking lights of a sizable village.

A desperate burst of strength and race against time later, Arthur and Leon sit in a corner of the village tavern, each nursing a steaming hot bowl of stew. It’s not much, the broth more water than meat and a few meager strips that might pass as vegetables floating in it, but food is hard to come across, these days. They should be grateful that the barkeep had somehow managed to find the firewood to heat the stew this far.

Firewood is hard to come across, these days. Not when it is so cold that no new trees dare grow.

The tavern is rowdy, as all taverns are wont to be, ale loosening inhibitions and bringing out the raucous scoundrel in everyone. It’s as down-to-earth as could be, the scent of sweat mingling with the faint stench of half-cured furs and broth, but somehow, after the absolute whiteness and wind-song of outside, it seems impossibly surreal.

“We were lucky to make it here on time,” Arthur says, relief loosening his limbs. He plonks his heavy arm onto the rough oaken table of the settlement. Both Leon and he have opted to blend in with muted colours of russet and brown, though the fine weave of the fabric probably stands out like a sore thumb in this sorry crowd. They couldn’t have possibly settled for anything less, though, not when their excuse to Uther was that they were riding out to gather ‘intelligence.’

Arthur is wearing chainmail under his tunic, and fur to guard him against frost-bite, too, so he probably looks ridiculously bulky and bloated.

“That we sure were.” Leon jerks a thumb at the small thick-paned hole that serves as a window. “All hell’s broken out, out there.”

All Arthur can see is inky black and brief snatches of white, but that’s more than enough.

What brief snippets of conversation Arthur can snatch from the other patrons seem to be somewhat along the same vein, albeit with much more gesticulating and cursing.

The wrathful god’s name is whispered behind raised hands, Uther’s name brought up only to be cursed and laid blame on, and Arthur winces.

The way things are going, Uther may have a rebellion on his hands before long.

The high priest Willaim’s execution, it seems, had been a public one, with crowds upon crowds present to watch.

The things rage drives men to do, indeed.

The somewhat idyllic chatter of the tavern is broken, suddenly, by a muffled shout.

“Whatdd’ya mean ye ain’t nicked my purse? I seen you, boy, you dirty thieving scoundrel, you - ”

Arthur flinches, startled, and his hand shoots toward his concealed dagger before he can help himself. Reflexes honed on the battlefield are truly fearsome things – some days, his hand moves faster than his brain.

“I told you I didn’t, you pig-headed prat!”

The answering voice is clear and high, and Arthur makes out a slight, tall figure of a boy, maybe six, seventeen summers old, no older than eighteen at the most. A mop of ruffled black hair curls just above his ears, and Arthur catches a glimpse of cheekbones, high and fey, and gesticulating hands, fluttering, indignant.

Pretty, Arthur thinks, then shakes his head. What has gotten into him?

“You - ”

The giant of the man makes a grab for the boy, but misses by a few inches, inebriation dulling his aim. The boy scrambles backwards, searching wildly for a route of escape, and Arthur could swear the boy’s eyes met his own.

He blinks, and now the tavern’s owner is hollering something about how he doesn’t mind a good old brawl but will they please take it out of his bar, because he’ll bash their heads in if they go about bashing crockery and chairs and some such, and the man is looming towards the boy, menacing.

The crowd sways, murmuring. The tavern crowd has always loved a good show.

The man is going to pulverize the boy, Arthur knows. The man is built like a slobbering bull, wide and tall and heavy, with hands that could crack walnuts with his pinky. The boy, on the other hand, is built like a whip – slender and lithe, only the barest hint of muscle showing about his arms and legs.

Before Arthur knows it, he’s stood up, chair scraping loudly behind him.

“Oi!” He yells, and he has the giant’s attention in record time. “Come pick on someone your size!”

“Go mind your own business!” The man yells, making a rude gesture. The crowd ripples and laughs. Arthur grits his teeth; of course to them two bashings are better than one. But what they don’t know is that there will be a bashing, indeed, but it won’t go the way they’d expected it to.

Three long, measured strides, four, then Arthur is right in front of the man. Leon’s admonishing touch on his upper arm lingers, but Arthur brushes it away like nothing, because there’s something about that boy, and even though Arthur knows very well that he really could be some common thief, he can’t help himself, not now.

The man makes a wild swing towards Arthur’s general direction.

It’s his downfall.

Arthur grasps the man’s wrist in a choking grip, fingers bent into submission, and flips him soundly onto the ground with a faint grunt of exertion. The man really is large, because Arthur’s back screams in protest, but it is done – the man’s head hits the dirt floor with a resounding clash, and he’s knocked out cold as a lightbulb.

Silence.

Arthur can feel every single eye in the cramped room on him. Leon’s steel gaze bores into his, and Arthur can feel the reprimand, like all of those times he’d gotten a sound talking-to after he’d done something particularly foolish – like now, it seems. He’d had no business drawing attention to himself like that. Especially when time and secrecy was of the essence.

That boy, though. There’s just something about him -

“Well,” the barkeep’s rough voice breaks the silence. “Don’t care who you go picking fights with, but ye’re paying for him. He ain’t paid yet.”

When Arthur’s managed to get the whole fiasco sorted out, all tabs paid and all of the tavern-goers either placated with a quick slide of coin under the table or brow-beaten into submission, he’s set to faint.

Leon and he had agreed that sharing a room would be the best, because they would be able to be on the lookout for each other – Arthur swears his ears are still ringing, the way Leon had given him a dressing-down like no other. The barkeep probably thinks Leon is his uncle or something. Which isn’t that far from the truth, considering, but still.

A prince does have his pride.

Arthur pushes the door open with his shoulder, the abused metal of the door-hinges grating open with an ear-rattling screech, and starts.

The boy from that fateful bar-fight is sitting on Arthur’s bed, waiting.

Seen from this close, the boy’s eyes are a wide, startling blue, a little like the stormy skies of spring right before a downpour of rain. Long, spidery eyelashes flutter against pale cheeks, and the sight of that boy like this is doing things to Arthur that he really doesn’t want to go into right now, but -

“How did you know we were to be here?” Leon hisses, pushing past Arthur and pressing the dagger he always keeps against his boot to his neck. The boy flinches.

Arthur knows that Leon’s being smart, here, because he knows better than anyone that spies could be waiting around any corner, and that he shouldn’t judge people by their looks. That boy who’d delivered the pie for Arthur’s tenth birthing-day had been slight, too, barely fit to squash a gnat, except it had turned out he’d poisoned half of the feast’s guests with that fateful pie.

There is something about this boy, though, that brings out an irrational urge in Arthur to protect and defend. Arthur shakes his head, hoping to clear it of all these stray thoughts, and moves to join Leon. Leon is shaking the boy, now, rough, by the scruff of his neck.

“Answer me,” he hisses, and Arthur knows that the next step may very well be slitting his throat and leaving him for dead. War has a way of hardening a man like nothing else ever could, and the boy is already suspicious enough as it is.

The boy, though, must have gotten over his initial shock, because he flushes, indignant, and retorts:

“I just wanted to thank you, I swear! The barkeep told me where to go.” The flush, Arthur notes distantly, brings out the blue of his eyes. “Seems like I needn’t have, though.” A grumble, added almost like an afterthought. “Are you just going to murder me like some common bandit? Because then I think I’ve misjudged you horribly.”

Leon is a knight through and through, and the boy’s words must have jolted something in him, because he loosens the slightest of fractions and lets the boy go. The boy sits back, hard, onto the bed, massaging his neck.

“You’d go and keep your mouth shut if you wanted to thank me,” Arthur says, striding forward to stand side by side with Leon. “We have no need of any – _services_ you may see fit to provide.” Arthur means to rankle the boy’s pride, because from what he’s seen the boy seems to have that in spades, and Arthur and Leon really and truly do need to drive him away of they are to continue on their merry way. True to Arthur’s predictions, the boy hisses in rage. “You - ”

The anger fades as fast as it had first appeared, though, and the boy grinds his heels in, stubborn. “No. I’m not taking that. I don’t want to be indebted to you.”

“You’re not - ” Arthur throws his hands up, exasperated. “I told you, and I will tell you again, I don’t need you.”

“Everyone needs something.” The boy’s words are succinct, matter-of-fact, and way wiser than his years. Leon shoots Arthur a glare that shouts, this is all your fault, and for once Arthur can’t argue.

He was so stupid. How does a secret mission go so wrong so fast?

“Ah! I’ve got it.” The boy seems cheerful, now, and Arthur winces. It’s almost disturbing, how mercurially this boy’s emotions seem to change. It’s almost like the damn weather these days – cold and sunny, then all of a sudden cold and blisteringly stormy. Well, there is one constant, there. It’s always gods-damned _cold_. “I can be your servant for a while. You look quite well-off – don’t you need someone to gather the firewood, sweep the camps, the like? And I know my way around here awfully well.” His eyes narrow, shrewd. “I could help you look for whatever you’re looking for.”

Leon’s hand tightens on the hilt of his dagger. Danger.

“You don’t know we’re looking for something,” Arthur says, fighting to keep his voice neutral. It won’t do to give anything away, more so than they already have. The boy raises an eyebrow, and Arthur can almost hear the sceptical, _really?_ it entails. It’s disturbing, really, how many eyebrows of Doom he encounters these days.

“I know what men on a mission look like,” the boy says, matter of fact, and that is that.

“You will not follow us,” Leon says, and his tone is final. It is the tone Leon takes on when Arthur is about to do something exceptionally stupid, like charge at the enemy troops with only him, his lance and his horse. Like stand up to Uther in front of the entire court and have his cheek slapped like a weeping maiden for his troubles.

“I don’t do debts,” the boy says, and he more than matches Leon’s for stubbornness.

Leon shows the boy out and closes the door.

Arthur doesn’t even know his name.

*

Arthur and Leon leave at the crack of dawn the next day, well aware of what a scene they’ve made the day before. There is also the problem of the boy, and Arthur has a very bad feeling about it. It's not every day that one runs across someone who can match Leon for stubbornness.

It’s like winning a tugging contest with a mule, or a shouting match with Uther. Arthur grits his teeth and urges his mare on. It’s not his usual mare, but some sacrifices were necessary – he can’t exactly barge into a village on a purebred warhorse and hope to blend in.

The day has dawned crisp and clear, cold but without a hint of clouds, and Arthur is both thankful and apprehensive for it. It’s a great day for riding, his breath frosting before him in short, white puffs, but no snow also means a greater chance of being tracked. Hopefully the snow-drifts are large enough that he won’t make much of a mark in them.

Arthur’s bad feelings are proven right when, a little after they stop for lunch – a quick meal of dried, cured meat and what little fruit preserves they have left – a figure meanders out of the underbrush.

The boy doesn’t even have a horse.

Did he really run all this way – barefoot? Arthur blinks, doubting his own eyes. They boy doesn’t have any shoes on, pale feet surreal against the backdrop of crisp, crystalline snow, and they don’t even seem the smallest bit pale.

Leon reaches for his dagger.

“You followed us,” Arthur exclaims, and makes sure to stuff every single ounce of frustration and exasperation into those words. He shakes his head, hissing.

“We ought to have you killed.”

“Will you?” the boy counters, and there is a challenge in his voice.

Both Arthur and Leon may be fighters, proven time after time on the harsh, bloody plains of the battlefield, and the recent skirmishes had stripped them of even the last vestiges of mercy. The other kingdoms have been growing in unrest, and Camelot must show that she can be savage if she is to fight all these poking, prodding attacks away.

Arthur is still young, though, and headstrong; and just foolish enough to still believe in such a think as chivalry.

Leon might kill.

Arthur can’t.

Arthur doesn’t answer, running a hand through his hair instead. It sticks up in blond tufts, the remaining moisture in it freezing in the chill wintry air and leaving it solidated like an icicle.

He probably looks ridiculous.

“Knew it,” the boy says, triumphant. He makes himself at home by their camp, which isn’t much – they haven’t dared to light a campfire, because there simply isn’t enough firewood to spare and in addition to that – it’s like a giant signal flare to any and all enemies about, screaming to come and get them.

Arthur is foolish, sometimes, but he’s not that reckless either.

Leon and Arthur ditch him a short while after that.

The boy must have some serious muscle on his legs, because by the time Arthur and Leon stop for their next break, he is already there, waiting for them. There is also another explanation, which would be far more plausible but that Arthur is refusing to acknowledge.

As much as he may disagree with his father on some things, he is still a citizen of Camelot, and thus under command of his king.

There are some choices Arthur doesn’t quite wish to make.

“I’m coming,” the boy declares, and there’s a fierce stubbornness in the way he stands, his shoulders drawn back in defiance and a glint in those eyes of his. His chin is high, and Arthur has a niggling feeling it won’t drop one bit even if he realizes who exactly he is talking to.

Arthur and Leon exchange a glance. Leon is shaking his head already, the faintest of twitches, but he doesn’t seem so sure either – by this point, both of them have accepted that there’s really no way of getting rid of this boy short of killing him.

“Fine,” Arthur grits out, exasperated. The boy lightens considerably, and Arthur draws his dagger in a flash, brandishing it menacingly. “But I’m not taking my eyes off you, understand? One command disregarded, one funny look, and you’re done with.”

Damn it, he’s really horrible at this threatening business. He ought to stick with dramatic charges and grand flourishes.

“Understood.” The boy nods, the very picture of deference, but there’s mirth in his eyes. Arthur sighs.

“Well, if you’re to be tagging along,” Arthur says, as he mounts back onto his mare. “We should at least know your name. Can’t go about calling you ‘boy’ the whole way, after all.”

After a moment’s consideration, Arthur hoists the boy onto the saddle right in front of him – he has a feeling the boy won’t have any trouble keeping up with them, but he doesn’t really wish to know how.

Some things are better left unknown.

The boy brightens imperceptibly, a slight straightening in his spine. He twists back to look at Arthur, a faint smile dusting those glass-cutter cheekbones of his, and says, “Merlin.”

The horse doesn’t even try to buck him off. Lucky sod.

3.

Arthur hates it when things don’t go to plan.

This quest can’t have gone further from his initial plan.

The original plan being something like this : Arthur rides out with Leon, makes quick work of the trip to Ealdor, which, according to Gaius, is where the god’s temple used to be. Arthur and Leon find Emrys or one of his followers, grovel and beg, and if they’re lucky, ta-da, spring comes again.

Arthur barely even remembers what spring is like. Meadows full of flowers and lots and lots of butterflies, probably. It certainly can’t be something that horrible.

The situation, now : a snowstorm, a tavern, and, most importantly, Merlin.

Arthur is so incensed that he takes to hoisting the most trifling and gruelling tasks onto Merlin, as some form of compensation.

After he’s sent Merlin off in search for some firewood (there hadn’t been a shrub in sight for miles), made him dig a cozy little den for them in the snow then made him cover it back up (it won’t do for us to be followed, won’t it, _Mer_ lin?) and otherwise pricked and prodded at the boy for the better part of the afternoon, Arthur is running low on ideas.

“You know,” Merlin says conversationally, “you really are a giant prat. You do know that, don’t you?”

Arthur, for all his faults, actually is a prince of Camelot and has been treated as such all of his life. He jolts a little in the saddle and gives Merlin a glare Morgana would have been proud of. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

“Why?” Merlin asks, leaning back in the saddle, and he as that air of insouciance about him that only people perfectly comfortable in their own skill possess, that confidence that Arthur could bring a whole cavalry troop with him and still not be able to lay a finger on the boy.

It isn’t one Arthur is accustomed to seeing on country boys, and, for some reason, it rankles him. “I’m a - ” _prince_ , Arthur almost says, but no, however much his pride may get away from him, he isn’t that brash. “Because I said so.”

Arthur curses as soon as those words leave his mouth. He sounds like – a brat. A ridiculous, spoiled, entitled prat. Merlin must have known, somehow, because Arthur can practically hear the smile in his words. “Yes, milord.”

They’re about halfway through their way, Arthur reckons. They’re making good time, resting the horses and taking short meal-breaks as needed. They are in a lull in their journey now, nothing much except the ground beneath them and the sky above them and the horses’ steady, ground-eating stride, lulling them into a sense of easy peace.

It’s still cold, because Camelot is always cold, these days, but the weather somehow seems milder – they haven’t encountered a single snowstorm yet, and though the air itself is chill, it isn’t biting like it had been just a day ago.

They haven’t met a single snowstorm – since Merlin’s joined them.

Arthur narrows his eyes.

Merlin must have picked up on his mood, because he pokes Arthur from behind. “Stop thinking so hard. You’ll injure yourself.” The boy is riding behind Arthur now, because Arthur figured a change of position would do them both good – no-one really wants cramped muscles from riding in the same position for way too long. And also Merlin’s backside was too big of a distraction for Arthur, but really, that’s a subject for another day.

Leon has ridden ahead to scout the terrain, map out any outlying threats, and Arthur is on his own with Merlin now. It makes his heart sketch out a strange beat and his hands clench down hard on the reins.

“You - ” Arthur begins, then clamps his mouth shut. Gods above and beneath, this is frustrating. He can’t even make a good retort without revealing his true identity. He figures Merlin knows he’s nobility already, though, so he does manage: “I’d have you thrown in the stocks.”

“Don’t see an awful many around here.”

“Shut up, Merlin.”

Somehow, Merlin brings out the boy in him. Arthur hasn’t been this childish in years. Uther’s ironclad upbringing and the responsibilities of a crown prince in a kingdom coming apart round his years – none of those had helped much in terms of a normal childhood, and Arthur had been forced to grow up way too soon for a boy his age.

Merlin is quiet for a beat or two after that. Arthur spots Leon in the distance, a small spot growing steadily larger, and fixes his sight upon him. He doesn’t want to deal with Merlin right now. He’s only known Merlin for less than a day, now, but there’s something about the boy that makes him – do things.

Gods know he has enough on his plate already.

“So,” Merlin starts up again. The boy seems physically incapable of shutting up. Arthur wants to either hoist him up and throw him into the underbrush or snog him senseless. Preferrably both.

The boy did have awfully plump, soft-looking lips, after all.

“What is this little mission of yours, exactly?”

“You’re not allowed to know.” Arthur snaps, half on reflex. He doubts Merlin would run straight to Uther to tattle-tale or anything, but this mission is way too important to compromise in any which way.

Also, Morgana would tell him to get a grip on himself and stop thinking with his prick, and Arthur hates to admit it – but this time, she would be right.

He doesn’t want to give her any more ammunition.

Merlin is persistent, though, and the prodding starts back up in earnest.

“I can’t exactly help you if you don’t tell me anything about it, you know.”

“Don’t need your help.”

“Stop grunting like a caveman. It doesn’t become you.”

Arthur reaches back and gives Merlin a nice, solid pinch in the ribs. His sides are surprisingly hard, more lithe muscle than knobby bone, and Arthur has to bank his trail of thought, hard, before it goes somewhere horribly inappropriate that most well-bred princes would blush to even think of it.

Merlin yelps.

Arthur bites his lip, at war with himself. On one hand, he knows how much is on stake – if Uther ever catches wind of his mission, he would not only send a troop of heavy cavalry to stop him, but he’d also raze Ealdor to the ground, burning, looting, pillaging. Arthur doesn’t really want to think about what this Emrys might do then.

A nice little curse on the royal family, maybe. Arthur wouldn’t dare to understand how a god’s mind may work. But what he knows is that it won’t be pretty.

On the other hand, what harm could come from telling – Merlin? Of course, Arthur can’t put aside the suspicion that all Merlin’s done so far is just an act. Arthur has always been good at telling these things, though, and while there is something irrevocably off about the boy – the way the air shimmers about him, like a mirage at spring, that strange confidence he seems to hold, as if the whole of the world couldn’t stop him – he doesn’t seem malicious.

Arthur would like to think he isn’t wrong.

And there is also the fact that there’s no conceivable way barring sorcery to get this news to Uther, and Uther hates sorcery so much that he’d probably shoot the messenger and burn the message to boot if he ever so much as gets wind of it.

The decision is a split-second one.

“Do you know the story about Emrys’ curse?” Arthur asks, by way of a conversation starter. Merlin chokes and splutters, and Arthur twists around, trying to get a good look at the boy.

“Goodness. Are you alright?”

“Yes.” Merlin’s red-faced and a little teary-eyed, and he considers Arthur with renewed interest. Those stormy blue eyes are awfully shrewd. “What about it?”  
”I want to fix it.”

“I doubt curses are meant to be _fixed_ ,” Merlin says, matter-of-fact. “How do you propose to go about it? Brandish your sword around, try to look scary, hope for the best?”

“Merlin!” Arthur cries, exasperated. Could the boy really be that daft? It must be an act. It has to be. “The – man – whatever – is a god. You don’t go about threatening gods. You – I don’t know, beg, grovel, whatever. And I probably won’t get to meet him, anyway. I’ll find someone to tell me what to do.”

Merlin hums and leans back. His face is distant, thoughtful, and for a moment Arthur thinks the boy seems old – older even than Gaius, than that soothsayer he’d seen at the market once, ancient, a relic of another time, faded and frail. He looks old the way mountains look old, distant, forbidding, mysterious.

“Look, I know you think I’m ridiculous - ” Arthur begins, anxious to diffuse this strange tension, somehow, but Merlin cuts him to it.

“Why?” he asks, and though Arthur can’t see his face, he can picture the boy’s face : blue eyes sincere and level, boring somewhere deep into him, dark brows drawn low, mouth a fine line, those prominent cheekbones glinting in the winter sun. Somehow, it’s easier, because he can’t see Merlin. It’s almost like talking to himself, in the deep of the night, promises and oaths he doesn’t dare let anyone else listen to.

“Because it’s the right thing to do.” But that’s not enough, and Arthur finds himself scrabbling to add more to it. “My father – he – made a mistake, many, many years ago. And now everyone is suffering because of it.” Arthur swallows, and the air feels charged, poignant, the thickening before a storm. “It’s my responsibility to try.”

Merlin is quiet for the longest while. Arthur can hear the soft hoofbeats of Leon’s horse, now, muffled by the snow, and he holds his breath, waiting. He swears he could hear his heartbeat if he tried.

Then Merlin reaches around and gives Arthur’s hand a brief squeeze, and that is an answer in and of itself.

It is only much, much later, that Arthur realizes that Merlin had never asked for the name of his father.

4.

Things are quite uneventful for a few days after that. Arthur and Merlin make small talk that more often than not end in bickering, and Leon watches them from a safe distance, a faintly amused, long-suffering expression fixed onto his face. Arthur knows he is becoming grubby, the sweat borne of exertion congealing into some disgusting substance beneath his mail and furs and tunics, but it’s a death wish to bathe outdoors in this weather, so he trudges on.

Ealdor grows closer by the minute.

The weather remains suspiciously clement, no sign of a snowstorm or sudden hail in sight. Arthur dares hope that the elusive god has somehow gotten wind of his quest and is considering letting go of his anger, after all these years. Merlin is as annoying as ever, a few, tentative winter-birds fill the air with warbling song, and it’s almost idyllic.

Arthur should have known better than to hope for it to last.

They are passing by a clump of trees that might once have been a forest when trouble strikes. A sharp, barbed arrow whizzes through the air in front of Arthur and impales itself on the ground right before the mare’s feet. The horse rears, lashing out with its hooves, and Arthur has to hang on for dear life so as not to be unseated. He draws his dagger, reaching for the sword strapped across the saddle, but the attackers are faster.

“Surrender everything you have,” a strong, feminine voice calls out, voice gravelly from hours of barking out commands and rough nights out with the wind. “And we may let you go.”

Figures emerge from the trees, ragged, emaciated, hollow cheekbones pronounced under eyes dusted dark with fatigue. They look starved, they look utterly desperate, and Arthur tightens the grip on his weapons, wary, because desperate foes are always dangerous ones.

Nothing is more terrifying than someone fighting for survival itself.

Bandits, if Arthur is to follow the basest definition of the word – yet Arthur is loathe to call them that, because they are his people, starving from the looks of it, all for the folly of his father.

“We do not have much,” Arthur ventures, wary, because it is the truth. He only has the barest of rations – this mission had never been meant to be drawn out, and he couldn’t have brought much more, without either making Uther suspicious or setting the village tongues wagging. Merlin does seem to have an affinity to finding winter berries and greens, but, well, he can’t exactly market Merlin as a commodity.

Nor is he willing to, to be honest.

“Lies,” the leader snarls. Arthur counts about twenty men in total, men and women alike, all armed with rudimentary bows, slings, and spears. Arthur counts several men brandishing pitchforks and several more with rusty swords that seem to have seen better times.

The odds aren’t very good.

Arthur tenses, warring between trying to talk further or just getting the fight over with – the hot-blooded warrior in him speaking, now – and that moment must have been enough for the bandits’ leader to come to a decision, because she lets out a battle-cry and rushes towards Arthur.

Arthur and Leon have years upon years of training on their side, but what the bandits do have is desperation and sheer numbers, and it isn’t long before Arthur is forced to give ground, inching back towards from whence they came.

“I should have known better than to try to reason with a _noble_ ,” the leader hisses, and her voice is dripping with so much bitterness that Arthur is taken aback. It’s a melee, Arthur and Leon trying desperately not to be seperated from each other, the bandits swarming them from all sides. Their mare is already lost, their rations split open and spread across the floor, and Merlin is no-where to be seen. The leader doesn’t seem to wish to spare him, much, any longer.

These are men driven by a frenzy of rage, and they won’t give up so easily, not when they have nobles dangling in front of them like fat, tantalizing prey.

Arthur curses.

He would have liked to at least have made it as far as Ealdor.

He remembers reading something about blood sacrifices in the Old Religion, back when he was reading through book after book with Gaius in a vain attempt to find something, anything, to aid him in his self-appointed quest. If he dies here, will it count as something?

Would it be enough for this Emrys to at least consider rescinding his curse?

His arm is falling numb, several shallow, long cuts dotting his face, and Arthur curses as he slips on something, nearly stumbling face-first into the ground. He isn’t even sure if this is a battle he ought to be fighting.

These are his people.

He didn’t train to be a knight to slaughter them.

Arthur sighs, and that is when the branches start snapping.

They aren’t much, the lack of nutrition these past years rendering them into something more twig than actual limb, but they snap nonetheless, raining down from the sky in a disconcerting cascade of snaps and cracks. A bandit goes down with a cry, a well-placed branch crashing into his head and knocking him clean unconscious, then another, another.

The whole thing is so surreal that Arthur and Leon gape for a moment, staring with mouths hanging open, before their training kicks in and they are galvanized into action. With the help of the mysterious cracking branches, Arthur and Leon make short work of the remaining members, and it isn’t long before Arthur manages to subdue and bind the leader, tying her arms with a strip torn from the hem of her dress-turned-tunic.

The leader has a spine of steel, this Arthur can concede. She hisses and spits at Arthur’s feet, her face, quite a comely one under all these layers of grime and blood, contorted into a fierce snarl that speaks of pretty much everything but defeat.

“Go on, kill me,” she taunts. “Kill me, and show your true colors. You do want to, don’t you? You prance about, talking of the knights’ code and some such – when all you want to do is plunder and rape and kill. Go ahead.”

Arthur knows that some nobles really are as bad as she makes them out to be. He doesn’t even really have to think back overly far – last winter, for example, at the castle’s mid-winter feast. Arthur had been against the event as a whole, on the grounds that they had no business wasting precious resources on such frivolities when people were starving to death in droves, but Uther had been adamant that Camelot not show any weakness towards their enemies. What Arthur had seen late that night, in a darkened corridor on his way back to his chambers -

A pasty noble boy, disgustingly pudgy, a hand up a serving-girl’s dress and the girl sobbing wet, hopeless tears.

Arthur hadn’t been very patient, that day.

His eyes skim over the motley band of bandits, various shapes and sizes, cheekbones sticking out of their faces like knives, fit to keel over any second. They are nothing like the majority of Camelot’s nobles, plump and warm in their rich furs and colorful dresses, and the thought brings bile to Arthur’s throat. The fur lining to his chain-mail suddenly seems disgustingly filthy.

Arthur’s eyes meet Leon’s across the small clearing, the snow trampled and splattered with blood here and there, broken branches littering the ground, and Leon’s eyes are pained, too. Arthur knows Leon has always hid a heart softer than any other behind that stoic facade of his.

A short nod, barely a movement, and Arthur’s mind is made up.

“I am going to let you go,” Arthur says, kneeling down to come eye-to-eye with the leader. “But you must swear on your honor not to harm me or my friends. Do you swear?”

“I do not make bargains with nobles,” she spits, and Arthur can feel a story there – a story full of rage and pain, and he blinks and shakes his head. He unties her anyway. She lunges for him, but Arthur makes short work of subduing her yet again – her limbs are strong but painfully thin, and Arthur is far more well-rested than she.

“Then listen,” he says. He doesn’t have coin nor food sufficient to help these men, but he does have an idea – a fortress, not far from here, and an old friend strong and true. He knows he will help; he always does. He rummages about in his tunic and finds his house’s seal, the weight heavy and reassuring in his palm. “Take this, and seek Sir Caradoc at the fort by the lake. It’s less than three days’ walk north – he’s known to never turn those in need away.”

The fact that he has to wheedle and hope that his people will take his word for what it is is somehow painful, and Arthur’s voice is hoarse as he adds: “Will you take my word for it?”

A whole horde of emotions war before the woman’s eyes. Cries of both protest and assent rumble through those bandits who have recovered enough to stir, and it’s a riot for a moment, before the leader snaps her eyes open and snatches the crest out of Arthur’s hands.

These people are desperate, Arthur knows. And yet -

“If you have lied to us, the gods will know,” the woman warns, and Arthur laughs, short and wan. “Heavens know at least one god has reaped his due.”

Arthur and Leon help stand watch until the last of the band stirs, and they leave through the trees, a long, dark line, cutting dark against the pale expanse of the snow. Arthur’s palm tingles strangely where it had touched the woman’s – she has taken Arthur’s word, after all, and it makes Arthur feel so many things that he can’t put into words.

It feels awfully much like forgiveness, perhaps, or hope.

Later, Arthur joins Merlin by the campfire, where by some miracle he’s managed to get a small, merry flame going. The wind is more of a breeze, barely there, and the snow that falls in soft droves around them is fluffy and thin, a hazy curtain against the dark night sky. Merlin tilts his head, eerily birdlike, and watches Arthur in consideration.

“You didn’t kill them.”

Arthur knows which ‘them’ Merlin is referring to, even without words. He huffs. “I like to believe I’m not a cold-blooded killing machine. Those people were desperate, Merlin. Would you rather I’d have gotten rid of them once and for all?”

“The king wouldn’t have been that merciful.”

The mention of his father sends a jolt through Arthur’s spine. Merlin – could he – no, it can’t be. Arthur manages to school his face into something resembling calm, and bites his lip. “Maybe not.”

“Oh, I should know.” Merlin looks away, but not before Arthur catches a glimpse. There is something dark and terrible in Merlin’s eyes, and Arthur suppresses a shiver. When Merlin turns back, his eyes are their usual vivid, stormy blue.

“You’ll be a far better king than your father.”

“I’m not - ” Arthur splutters, taken by surprise. Merlin gives him a look. “Don’t be daft, Arthur. I saw your family crest. Not many nobles brave enough to take the royal seal as theirs, I’d reckon.”

“You - ”

“It’s alright. I know you’re secretly a giant prat, but I won’t tell.”

Merlin’s eyes are twinkling with mirth, his plump lips stretched into a wide, genuine smile, and there’s a faint flush on his cheeks from the chill. Arthur knows then, irrevocably, that Merlin is going to be the death of him.

“I’ll have you beheaded,” Arthur threatens, and gods, he’s wanted to say that for so long. The fact that Merlin’s figured out who he is is strangely liberating, in a way, even if it means Arthur might have to do something terrible to Merlin should he spread the news. He trusts Merlin, though, even though he is hard-pressed to actually think of a plausible reason why.

It just is, Arthur supposes. The way the seasons turn (or will again, if only the god Emrys manages to look past his anger), or swallows fly south to nest.

Merlin gives him a cheeky grin and flicks a clump of snow at his face. After that, of course, it’s full-out war, and they don’t sleep until a disapproving Leon ushers them both to their bed-rolls, dragged by their ears.

Arthur thinks he smells rain-wet grass, a scent half-forgotten, because it’s been winter for so long that he’s beginning to forget what fresh grass even looks like.

Perhaps it was a dream.

Perhaps not.

*

Leon wakes Arthur up early the next morning and takes him to a thicket, some ways away from their camp from the previous night, close enough to watch but not close enough to be heard.

Arthur, groggy, rubs the back of his hand against his eyes; the chill is a jolt he feels all the way down his spine.

“It’s Merlin,” Leon says, a pinch between his brows. “I – you saw it too, Arthur, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Arthur admits, grudgingly. He knows what Leon is getting at, because he may be dense, but he isn’t an imbecile nor a fool. He knows how things happen around Merlin, like getting places faster than riders on horseback do, like suddenly clement weather and convenient branches that fall on their enemies’ heads.

Like a merry crackling fire, when it’s snow all around them and no tree in sight for miles upon miles, a fire that never banks nor goes out.

“He knows who you are,” Leon says, “and after your father – the purge – he – it cannot be that he bears you no ill will, sire. You know - ”

And Arthur knows, alright. He’s had his fair share of sorcerers out for his blood – he would joke to Gaius that he’s probably been exposed more often to magic than any other citizen of Camelot. Magical fires, burns, explosions, poisons – he’s had it all.

And he can’t blame them, not really, because if someone had gotten to Leon and done away with him, for the sole reason that he were a knight and knew how to use a sword, or heavens forbid, Morgana -

Arthur didn’t know what he would do.

What he would be capable of doing.

Logically, Arthur knows what he must do. He must knock Merlin out somehow, though if he really does turn out to be a sorcerer then it should be a lot harder than he’d imagine, and ride like hell itself is behind him.

But what he wants to do is something very different.

Leon must have seen all this in him – he’d always been good at reading Arthur, and this time is no exception. His expression is apologetic but firm, that face he gets whenever he knows that he’s right and must force Arthur to make some difficult decision for the greater good.

Arthur has listened, most of the time. But today -

“No,” Arthur replies, stubborn.

Merlin, highlighted in gold by the firelight, almost like something straight out of a children’s story-book. Merlin, laughing in the sun, head thrown back. Merlin insulting him and somehow making it more exhilarating then all of those boot-lickers back at the palace had been, Merlin, Merlin.

“Sire,” Leon begins, but Arthur is faster.

“I am your prince,” he reminds him, and though Leon looks like he’s just swallowed something particularly distasteful, he is a knight through and through. He will not defy his lord.

“Yes, sire,” he says, and Arthur turns around, trying very hard to suppress the feeling that he is doing something awfully, monumentally stupid.

But it’s Merlin.

And to Arthur, he realizes with a jolt, that’s reason enough.

5.

Only one more village lies between them and Ealdor, and though Arthur knows that hardly means their quest is over and done with, it’s still enough to put him into a good mood.

A few birds wheel overhead, and Arthur hears a faint screech, an echo from high above. It seems the birds are in a triumphant mood today, too. It must feel good to stretch their wings, Arthur supposes: it hasn’t been long since the knife-like windstorms have died down somewhat, and the birds seem to be making the most of this temporary lull.

“Merlins,” Merlin comments, staring straight up into the sky. He doesn’t even seem concerned about being blinded by the sun.

Arthur frowns, quizzical, for a moment before he registers the boy’s words – Merlin falcons, not Merlin-the-person. “You can tell?” he asks, genuinely curious. Merlin is almost like a onion – Arthur could peel and peel and peel, and there would still be a wealth of secrets and quirks, lurking uncovered.

Merlin shrugs. “Used to have a friend. He loved them.”

His eyes are somewhere far, far away, and though Arthur would rather impale himself on his sword than admit the fact, Arthur prefers Merlin’s absurd antics a thousand times over this.

“What, did he force you to change your name to Merlin, too?” Arthur asks, an exaggerated swagger in his limbs as he pokes Merlin, eager to get a rise out of him, anything but that strange, pensive look. Merlin only seems to slide deeper into thought. “Maybe,” he says, and an enigmatic smile quirks his lips.

He looks a little like those wall-paintings in the temples, Arthur thinks. Sometimes, Uther would make Arthur ride out to the worshipping places of the old religion, to make sure all vestiges of their old glory were gone, knights with maces and wall-breaking siege machines not far behind. Arthur remembers those sneaked glimpses of the whitewashed walls, gilded gold and stained red and blue with berries, portraits of old gods serene and haughty and faded.

Sometimes, Arthur wonders if he’s really right to think of Merlin as a mere boy.

Merlin snaps himself out of his mood a short while after that, and the remainder of the ride to the next village is filled with silly banter and good-natured ribbing, Leon relaxing his guard to join with a rejoinder or two from time to time. Arthur still catches Leon watching Merlin with a hawk’s eye, sometimes, but the old knight has warmed up a lot towards the boy – Leon may try his best not to let it show, but Arthur knows Leon well enough to discern forced civility from genuine affection.

Merlin is like that, Arthur supposes. Growing on people bit by bit with his clever wit and glinting eyes, fingers quick and nimble and fast to help.

He should have known the boy would end up winning Leon over, too. At this point, Arthur thinks he wouldn’t be surprised by practically anything. Gods, Merlin could whip out a pair of pointed ears and silly shoes and declare himself a pixie in disguise, and Arthur would just shrug and raise a brow.

And now here he is, sitting and stewing about in absurd thoughts when he has a quest to fulfill and people to save. Arthur glares at Merlin, incensed all of a sudden, and ribs him hard, just for the sake of it. Merlin rubs at his sides and glares right back.

“Hey! What was that for?”

“Nothing,” Arthur retorts, gruff. Merlin sighs and grumbles under his breath, but Arthur has trained for battle practically since birth, and he rarely misses anything, muttered or not.

“Such a clot-pole.”

Arthur fights to suppress a grin.

They ride into the village a little before noon, the horses’ hooves beating out a muted tap-tap-tap on the pressed dirt of the village’s main road. It’s a far sight from what they’d expected, though – every single window is drawn and shuttered, not a person to be seen, and it’s eerily quiet, like a town out of an old wife’s ghost tale. Arthur swallows a shudder, and his fingers tighten involuntarily on the reins.

The mystery is solved once they get to the village tavern.

The barkeep is a wisp of a woman, flyaway ginger strands framing a long face with a pinched, narrow nose, and her eyes flicker rapidly from this side to that as if bracing herself against some invisible threat.

“Haven’t you heard about the wyverns?” She says, a harsh, exaggerated whisper, and Arthur gulps, a little uncomfortable under her regard.

“Well, not - ”

“There are some who say they're Emrys’ punishment, you know,” she adds conspiratorily, like a kitchen-maid sharing a piece of particularly juicy gossip. “The king hasn’t changed his ways, even after the winter, you see, and – well.” She shrugs, and there’s a shadow haunting her eyes. “The old gods aren’t particularly forgiving.”

“It’s not Emrys,” Merlin says, almost as if by instinct, then snaps his mouth shut. Leon eyes the boy speculatively but says nothing. Arthur shakes his head – he’s going to brew himself up a headache sometime very soon, if he goes on like this – and fixes his attention back at the barkeep. The woman is wringing her hands on her apron, now, and it isn’t doing any favors to his nerves.

“So, you said – wyverns?”

“A whole pack of them. They’ve been scouring this part of the country for a while, now, fire and brimstone – you’d do best to get away from here, fast.” She pauses, contemplating. “Though maybe try some stew, first; we’ve some lemon-grass my lass found some ways back. Quite something, that one.”

From the sound of it, these wyverns don’t seem an idle threat. Arthur has never seen one, to tell the truth, but he’s heard tales of them. Flying, fire-breathing creatures, dragons in all but size, ruthless, hungry, territorial. Even knights in full armor were said to be hard-pressed to hold their own against one – the people must be practically helpless, then, prey to be picked off at the beasts’ leisure.

It would be suicide for Arthur or Leon to try to take on a full pack of the creatures alone.

But, well, Arthur had never been particularly smart about these things.

“We do have to get to Ealdor anyway,” Arthur shrugs, and looks toward Leon. Leon looks like he wants to sink through the ground and rest there forever (heaven knows Arthur’s given him enough white hairs already). Merlin looks torn between the urge to take Arthur and run for the hills and the urge to take Arthur’s head and rip it clean off of his shoulders. (Perhaps for being a ‘stupid prat’, his words, not Arthur’s.)

“Whatever you say, sire,” Leon says, resigned. Arthur nods. “Alright, then. A bowl of your specialty stew it is.”

Arthur and Leon, upon poring a bit longer over their map of the countryside, decide that they don’t have enough time to spend the night at the inn. They’re running much later than would be plausible to Uther already, and if they aren’t to be dragged away and questioned within an inch of their lives upon their return to Camelot, they have to make haste. Arthur is beginning to forget what it feels like to sleep indoors.

There’s Merlin and his thrice-blessed campfire, though, so Arthur isn’t complaining, much.

Merlin corners Arthur by the campfire later that night.

“You aren’t going after the wyerns alone,” Merlin says with an air of finality. The faint light of their fire throws strange shadows over Merlin’s face, the hollows of his cheekbones rendered impossibly deep, eyes glinting a strange blue-orange and lips drawn tight.

“I’m not alone,” Arthur says, keeping his voice reasonably pleasant. “I’ve got Leon.”

“By all that is holy - ” Merlin throws his hands up into the air. “You’re going to kill yourself!”

Half of Arthur knows, because though he may be awfully arrogant from time to time, he’s still a hardened soldier who knows to read the odds realistically. But he has enough deaths on his hands already, be it on purpose or not, and by now he’s just sick and tired of it all. His gut roils and clenches in his stomach.

Arthur smiles, wan and thin. “Have some more confidence in my abilities.”

“I’ll have confidence when you manage to make yourself invincible and immortal, you prat.”

Merlin sighs, settling down beside him, knees drawn up and tucked against his chest. “I don’t – want you to die.”

The words are pushed out tentatively, almost as if testing the taste of them, and Arthur has a feeling they’re as unexpected to Merlin as they are to him.

“That’s good to know.”

Merlin is quiet for a while, and their campsite is utterly quiet save for the faint crackle of the fire, shooting out a stray spark or two at irregular intervals, the pops and creaks of the wood, the soft hoot of a faraway owl. Arthur is suddenly overcome by the irrational urge to justify himself to Merlin – which is absurd, really. Princes shouldn’t have to explain the whys and wherefores of their actions to peasants. But Merlin is different, Arthur thinks. Always has been.

“I – have to,” Arthur blurts. “It’s just – I know I won’t be awfully effective, and I should probably ride back and inform my father, except – I’ve no way of explaining why I was here at the first place.” Ealdor isn’t even in Camelot, and Arthur is pretty sure he’s halfway over the border already. “And he might – he might send out an army to get rid of the wyvern, because he hates all kinds of creatures like that, but he won’t care – he might well burn all the villagers, too, for not letting him know of the threat any faster. He - ”

Arthur is rambling now, and he knows it. But everything’s just too much, he’s got a pounding headache and he doesn’t know what to do except _act_ , because he’s a warrior at heart and what he does best is to lead the charge. Except he -

Gods above and below, he’s going to _die_.

Merlin watches him wordlessly, eyes almost black in this low light, and Arthur is about to open his mouth again when he’s cut off with an _mmmph_.

His brain very near shuts down.

Merlin’s lips are a lot softer than he’d imagined, not even a hint of chapped skin or cuts, smooth and tender and insistent. There’s a flick of tongue against the seam of his lips, and Arthur’s lips part almost without conscious effort. Merlin tastes like Arthur imagines a summer storm might taste, charged lightning and howling winds and dark, towering clouds, the sweet smell of grass and tangy fruit and lazy sunlight out on the fields.

Kissing Merlin is like a force of nature, Merlin’s hands are impossibly hot against his hips, and Arthur gasps, eyes sliding closed. Then it’s over, and Arthur is left reeling.

Merlin’s gone by the time he opens his eyes.

Merlin comes back sometime during the night. Arthur takes in the fresh scent of wintry air as Merlin settles down beside him, and keeps his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. He doesn’t know about Merlin, but Arthur isn’t ready to acknowledge what’s happened – far from it.

“I know you’re not sleeping,” Merlin says, and there’s laughter in his voice. Arthur resolutely does not stir. He even adds a snore for good measure. Oh, Merlin has no idea of just how stubborn Arthur Pendragon can get.

“None of that, now.” Merlin pokes a cold finger into Arthur’s collar. He yelps and jolts back to attention, and fixes Merlin with a cold, miserable glare. Merlin huffs in response and slides down to lie next to him, a pensive look in his eyes.

“Do you?”

“Do you what? Merlin, I know I am amazing in many different ways, but even I don’t know how to _read minds._ ”

For once, Merlin doesn’t have a barbed retort ready for him. “Do you think the wyverns are Emrys’ doing, I mean.”

Huh. “I don’t know.” Arthur makes to turn toward Merlin, and manages to get himself there right despite quite a few jostles and stinging contact with the ice-cold floor. He squints at the boy, wondering. “Why are you even curious about that, anyway?”

“Just – just tell me what you think. Please.”

Merlin looks surprisingly sincere, and vulnerable, like the young boy he really is. He doesn’t meet Arthur’s eyes, and Arthur huffs, giving in. The boy’s barely known him for a week, and he already has Arthur half-wrapped around his fingertips.

Morgana is right; Arthur should really stop thinking with his – privates. Heaven knows he ought to be more cautious anyway.

Arthur lies back and thinks for a moment. The thing is – no, he doesn’t, because he thinks he’s come to understand a little more about Emrys. He’s a god wronged, half-crazed by grief, with far too much power at his fingertips and too little consideration to the fleeting thing that is human lives, but he’s not needlessly cruel.

He doesn’t seem like one to send a horde of winged demons just to watch the people of Camelot burn.

Arthur tells Merlin so, and there’s a strange light in Merlin’s eyes, one that Arthur can’t really decipher. Arthur can’t stand the tension after a while and grunts, turning back to face the sky. “Don’t think to hard,” he says. “You’ll injure yourself.”

No answer.

Then, after a while, Merlin’s voice drifts back, surprisingly tender and soft.

“Thank you,” he says, and Arthur has to pretend to sleep, again, because he has no idea of how to answer that.

When he sleeps, he dreams of fire and smoke and ice, of great serpents with claws like swords and a man draped with glinting gold, power swirling about him like a cloak, tall and slender and straight, a god upon this earth.

When he turns, his eyes are the pale blue of a spring sky before a storm.

6.

The closer they get to Ealdor, the more extensive the damage is. Arthur turns away from plain after plain scorched black, smoke rising in some places, houses razed to the ground. Nothing will grow here ever again, Arthur feels in his bones, and the sheer desolation is so much that Arthur can’t bear to look.

A burning anger stirs deep in his gut. There is no way that wyverns actually feed on charred wood; this is a display of superiority, a way of crushing the peoples’ spirits before they even think to fight back.

It is cruelty, pure and simple, and Arthur won’t stand by it.

Merlin, usually talkative, is eerily quiet. He is riding with Leon, today, because Arthur’s mare is strong, but not enough for her to carry two riders nonstop without tiring. What Arthur glimpses is an expression of sheer fury, burning so cold as to almost seem expressionless, and he flinches and averts his eyes.

The winds are back today with a vengeance: Arthur hears an incessant howling at the periphery of his hearing, a high, keening whine, and far away by the tree-line the trees are snapping and creaking, swaying like leaves in a breeze. Where they are it is silent, though, so quiet that they could hear a pin drop – the eye of the storm, one could say.

Arthur sneaks a glance at Merlin, pensive. He narrows his eyes.

Maybe -

No.

He quashes that line of thought before it can go any further. _No._

Unbidden, his mind turns back towards earlier that day.

*

Merlin had seemed pale and ethereal in the early morning light, as if one push would be all it would take to banish him like a mirage made of mist, white as a sheet and as drawn as one to boot.

“Arthur,” he’d said, “I have something – to ask of you.”

Arthur had not known Merlin for a terribly long time, but Arthur did know certain things about Merlin. That he never asked for a favor, for one. Or that he never stuttered. It was an intrinsic part of the puzzle that was Merlin, that strange, slow insouciance, that imperviousness, as if a mountain could collapse on top of him and it wouldn’t touch a hair on his head. So Merlin, stuttering, nervous, had been enough to put Arthur on edge.

“What?” he’d asked, because Arthur was of the sort that got gruffer the more worried they were.

“Whatever happens,” Merlin had said. “Don’t – be afraid of me.”

Arthur’s first urge was to laugh it off, because Merlin was a peasant boy, he was scrawny and as un-intimidating as one could get, and he almost told him so, until Arthur paused, and thought again.

He thought of those brief moments when Merlin seemed a world away, untouchable, faraway, ancient, those moments when Arthur had to suppress a shudder without really knowing why. And somehow, Arthur knew, that he could very well be afraid of the boy before him.

Still, because Arthur didn’t want to talk about it, he did what he did best – he blustered.

“ _Mer_ lin, if you ever manage to intimidate someone with that string-bean body of yours,” Arthur says, “I’ll eat my sword.”

Merlin smiled, and it was a pale, drawn thing, nowhere close to his usual disarming blaze.

“I’ll take your word for that,” he’d said.

Arthur had been left with a faint fuzziness about his vision and the thought that he was going to be sick.

*

Now, Arthur steals glances at Merlin, who is sitting ramrod straight against the thin trunk of a tree they’d found, and feels clammy sweat fill his palms. He flexes his fingers, surreptiously wiping his hands on his tunic, because it just won’t do to come across the wyverns and have the sword flying out of his palm because of _sweat_ of all things.

Leon has ridden ahead to scout, because there’s no one Arthur would trust more to carry out a mission like that. His instincts, honed by countless hours out on the field, tell him that they are close – that they are at the heart of enemy territory, and it’s time to start getting ready for the fight, because the time is near.

Arthur doesn’t have much of a plan, to be honest. All he has is a strange desperation that this is his only chance to put things right, that he can’t just walk away, he _can’t_ , and brave, blustering courage.

And also Merlin, he hopes, but he’s not sure. He can’t be bloody sure about anything with the boy, with all his airs and mystery. Merlin will be the death of him if the wyverns don’t manage, Arthur is absolutely sure of that.

Merlin had been exceptionally close-lipped today, and even now, as he nudges Arthur to get his attention, he doesn’t use his name. Arthur jerks up out of his reverie with a muffled grunt. “What?”

“Take this.”

It’s a bracelet, Arthur realizes, except not in the most traditional sense of the word. It’s a band, meant to be worn about the wrist, Arthur is pretty sure about that – but it’s woven of bits of grass and flowers, surprisingly green and supple considering the weather, but lush and fragrant nonetheless. It’s knotted in intricate patterns, weaving in, out, in, out, so natural that it almost seems as if the vines have grown this way.

“Wherever do you even find these things?” Arthur asks, flabbergasted. He takes it anyway, though, because he’s far too gone to care – and he’ll be damned if he turns down a gift from Merlin, however girly or downright weird it seems.

“I have my ways,” Merlin says, and there’s that glimpse of his signature cheek; a dimple adorning one cheek, teeth glinting faint white in the muted light. Arthur huffs in exasperation and manages to wrangle the thing onto his sword-arm.

“Don’t let this put any ideas into your head,” Arthur warns. “I am a prince and renowned warrior, I’ll have you know - ”

“Oh, I know. You just need someone to knock something called sense into that giant pinhead of yours.”

“And flower bracelets are the way to go about it?”

“Of course. You obviously need to learn the tact of the fairer sex.”

“Oi! That’s the stocks for you!”

Arthur laughs, the tension somewhat broken, for now, and catches Merlin in a headlock. The boy splutters indignantly and flails wildly against Arthur’s hold, and that’s how Leon finds them upon his return.

He shakes his head, a fond smile flitting across his mouth, before his expression turns serious again and he fixes Arthur with a level stare.

Arthur has worked with Leon countless times, from almost as soon as he’d gotten old enough to join the patrols, and that is how, with a faint frission that blooms in his gut and spreads right down to the tips of his fingers, he _knows._

Leon confirms it with a nod.

“Sire,” he says, “we’ve found them.”

7.

The moment Arthur sees the beasts, he realizes they’re doomed.

He hadn’t realize how badly he’d been underestimating them - until now.

The wyverns’ nest is more of a pit, or a crater, a shallow indent lined with layer upon layer of rock, steaming hot. The jagged edges on some of them look like a demon’s claws, bursting out of the ground, forbidding and wicked; the smell of sulphur and rotting meat is overwhelming, and Arthur has to stifle his nose with his sleeve so as not to gag and give himself away.

Somewhere near the crater, Arthur thinks he sees the remnants of white stone, faded and crumbled – the temple of Emrys, Arthur thinks. He wonders if he will be so lucky as to have the god himself storm down to earth, enraged by the treatment of his temple, and smite the beasts to oblivion.

He supposes he’d been right in assuming Emrys had no hand in this infestation – people had veered wide away from Emrys’ temple since the onset of the long winter, afraid to do something to enrage the god further. Ealdor, Arthur knew, had kept on dwindling until it had slowly crumbled into a motely gathering of a few desperate villagers with nothing to lose. The wyverns had most likely found it a convenient place to nest and gather their strength, with no-one to challenge their claim, while being close enough to neighboring farms so as to provide sufficient feed in the form of livestock and the occasional unlucky child.

The original plan had been fairly simple. Mostly because there hadn’t been much choice, what with the limited resources they had. Arthur would draw the beasts to the river, where Merlin and Leon would lie in wait, and use the ropes weighed down with boulders they’d made the night before to capture the wyverns and drown them.

As things were going, Arthur would be lucky if he managed to make it to the river alive.

Arthur could spot about twelve of the creatures, ugly, sinuous things with scales the colour of dried blood and the wingspan of a small hut. The bodies weren’t terribly big compared to Arthur, but they were armed with fire and claws that could rip through armor, and Arthur didn’t much like his chances against them.

But, well, he’d made his decision already, and he doesn’t have anything to lose.

He spares a thought for Merlin and Leon – he can imagine Leon well enough, having seen the man in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds time and time again. He would have his stoic mask on, that expression that made him seem carved out of stone, unyielding and calm, and it wouldn’t just be a mask, either. Sometimes, Arthur thinks the world could be unravelling about his ears and Leon would face it with a nod and braced shoulders. Ah, that man.

Merlin – well, he doesn’t know, but Arthur does have a vague inkling that the boy isn’t some shrinking violet. He might even be fiddling with his thumbs, Arthur supposes, because from what he’s seen these past few days that’s exactly the sort of thing he would do in the face of life-threatening danger. Merlin hadn’t needed to tag along on this suicide mission, Arthur knows. But he’d come anyway, without nary a complaint nor any boasting, and that simple, unassuming faith makes Arthur feel warm to his very bones.

Arthur takes a deep breath, whispers a quick prayer to the god Emrys – though whether he would deign to listen to a Pendragon’s prayer, Arthur has no idea – and yells.

He yells, hollers and waves his arms about like a madman, jumps up and down like one possessed. Leon had been right about the beasts – they were prideful, fiercely protetctive of their own lands, and they didn’t react idly towards threats.

They raised their respective snouts, lazy at first, increasingly enraged as Arthur continued to scream bloody murder, and then -

They swarm after him, like some grotesque cloud of hideous, giant reptallian bees, and Arthur _runs_.

Arthur runs like he’s never run before – he’s foregone chainmail, too, despite Leon and Merlin’s disapproving glares, to make himself as light as humanly possible. He can hear the thump-thump-thump of his heart in his ribcage, adrenaline lending an extra boost to his flailing limbs and his vision tunneled down to right in front of him, and the ground rushes past him at near-dizzying speeds, turbulent and shaky.

Arthur spies the thin ribbon of the village’s river a little ways out, and his whole body seems lighter, the sense of not-so-far-now lending him a near-impossible reserve of extra energy. They can do this. They can -

Then something awfully, terribly stupid happens.

A stray pebble is all it takes, not even as large as Arthur’s smallest fingernail.

The ground teeters beneath him, and Arthur rolls back, eyes drawn wide with shock, and Arthur trips.

The scrape of gravel against his clothed knee is punishingly harsh. Arthur feels rather than hears the victorious screech of the beast and throws up his forearm, forcing his eyes wide open, because he’ll be damned before he faces a threat with closed eyes like a fool.

He is the crown prince of Camelot, and he will act his part.

He sees the wyvern’s drop from the air in slow motion, claws spread wide as if to spear him though like a skewered slab of meat, glinting ominously, maw wide open and gaping. This is it, he thinks, and braces himself, dagger at the ready.

Then – it isn’t.

Blindingly bright light flares from the bracelet on his arm, white and pure and clean, and the power Arthur feels is something deep and ancient, like when he stands at the foot of a great mountain, looking up, wondering if the peaks would touch the sky. It is soothing, like the song of the water one could hear on a riverbank, deep, pounding, like the heartbeat of the earth.

_Merlin_ , Arthur thinks, and then the wyvern is upon him.

It pounds against the strange shield-barrier that surrounds Arthur, screeching with rage, now, and though the shield shudders with every hit, glinting with white bursts of light like a dying star, it holds.

It holds.

Arthur makes a note to himself to have a serious talk with Merlin once all this is over.

A very, very serious one.

Arthur begins to regain his confidence as the shield manages to hold despite the best efforts of the beast, and begins to back towards the riverbank, step by step. The initial beast is joined by one of its friends, though, then another, and another, and Arthur’s wrist is heated almost to the point of pain by the bracelet, and Arthur knows – knows that Merlin’s protection won’t hold much longer, and that he has to do something.

He lashes out with his left hand, dagger managing to touch the beast’s scales but barely leaving a cut, and Arthur curses. Of course the damned things would be weapon-proof. It would be too easy otherwise, wouldn’t it?

The shield flickers, then in a cascade of light -

It _breaks_.

It was something Arthur had expected, but the moment it happens is so sudden that Arthur stumbles back, surprised, clutching at his shoulder. He stares numbly at the warm red coating his hand, the dull throb that only makes itself known now, that the shock of the moment begins to wear off, and then by the time he’s gathered his wits about him the beast is rearing back in triumph, knowing, instinctively, that nothing stands between Arthur and them now.

Ah.

Arthur hadn’t even -

_Merlin._

Then, almost as if by a miracle, Merlin is there, in front of him, and Arthur blinks.

Arthur isn’t sure if he would be able to explain it, even much later, even after he’s had hours upon hours to think about it. It’s almost as if Merlin sheds his skin, the skin that had been holding him back – containing the vastness that is him, and Arthur averts his eyes, unable to stare at the bright glow emanating from him, the sheer power and rage that rolls off the being in front of him in waves. Every pore in Arthur’s body is caught in a deadly state of limbo, just this side of spontaneously bursting into blinding-bright flames, and yet forcibly held together by some force he doesn't, couldn't, comprehend.

The world twists, crumples, and Arthur collapses to his knees, dizzy. It’s almost as if he’s in the center of an exploding star, and it is almost comical the way the wyverns fly back, disintegrating into nothingness as they go – crumbling like dust in the wind, fluttering, then – gone.

The sound hits a moment later, a deafening boom that reverberates to his very bones, and Arthur presses the heels of his palms into his ears, half-expecting to feel blood. He doesn’t.

The figure turns.

It is Merlin but it isn’t.

It – he – has all of Merlin’s features, the fine, delicate cheekbones, the stormy-blue eyes, both clever and forbidding, the soft line of the lips, the slender, lithe build, back straight and shoulders pulled comfortably back. But it’s something completely different at the same time, too, the way his very presence pulls at the seams of the world, as if it’s something way too powerful for the fabric of the earth to comprehend, warping and reshaping reality as he stands. The way golden-white light seems to dance about him, infused into the paleness of his skin, scattering into a myriad galaxies about his eyes, the edges of his being, the very air that leaves his mouth.

Arthur knows, without knowing how, that this is Merlin – how he was always meant to be. The real him, not the pale, diminished version he’d masqueraded as, the laughing country boy with the quick wit and nimble fingers.

Arthur wonders how he’d ever mistaken the boy as anything remotely human.

The puzzle pieces slot themselves together, a dizzying trail of fact-conjecture-thoughts, and suddenly, Arthur understands.

“Emrys,” he whispers, voice hoarse, betrayal and reverence warring furiously beneath the surface.

Emrys smiles.

As smiles go, Arthur supposes, it’s an awfully sad one.

*

Small blessings: Arthur doesn’t have to explain to Leon what had happened.

Merlin – _Emrys_ – had been there one moment, gone the next, Leon says, shaking his head in disbelief. There’s something in his tone that tells Arthur Leon has seen his wrath, too, because there’s something about watching a deity smite down his enemies that leaves a man perpetually changed.

A realization about how pitifully small they all are, Arthur thinks. Or maybe something about what sheer helplessness feels like – the knowledge that Arthur could fight, tooth and nail, with all he has, and yet be unable to leave a scratch upon the being in front of him.

Uther had been horribly arrogant to have dared go toe-to-toe with him.

Well, Arthur prides himself on knowing his father rather well, and if there was any single man in the five kingdom who would have dared – it would have been Uther. Arthur wonders if it had been courage or sheer, all-consuming rage. Perhaps both. Arthur doesn’t know.

Leon and Arthur tip-toe about the campsite in a state of knowing-not-acknowledging, all of their everyday chores edged with a faint apprehension at knowing who exactly resided among them. Emrys, now with no need to hide his true self, stops the winds and lights a fire with a wave of his hand. There isn’t even any firewood feeding it; Arthur looks away before it gives him a headache.

Arthur has to clamp down hard on himself so as not to jump. It is a point of pride, now.

Arthur refuses to be intimidated.

Leon is asleep, but Arthur lies awake, unable to sleep – his thoughts are way too loud. A million thoughts churn about in his head, no single one of them actually solidifying into a rational train, and Arthur massages his eyelids with the back of his hands. There’s a faintest crackle in the air, a sound of something hitting the floor, and Arthur opens his eyes to the sight of Emrys, looking down at him.

The man – god – has bothered to change back into his more human form again; a surge of annoyance rises up in Arthur for no good reason. It feels as if the god is defiling the memory of Merlin somehow, though Arthur now knows that the whole being of Merlin had been nothing but a facade.

To not be afraid of him, whatever happened -

Arthur has a creeping feeling that he’s failed in that respect, spectacularly so.

Arthur gets up without complaint, because he refuses to have this conversation lying down, and together they walk a little ways from the campsite to settle against a conveniently-spaced grove. Arthur squints at it. He doesn’t remember it being here yesterday. Did Emrys just grow it from nothing?

It’s giving him a headache, again, so Arthur purposefully banks that train of thought.

This is the god who had cursed his country.

This is the reason so many of his people have starved, desperate, so many people have died.

Arthur had thought he’d come to understand Emrys, before, when he’d thought of the god as some impersonal, faraway figure, way removed from the petty affairs of humans. It made sense, didn’t it? A human king had taken away the god’s loved disciple in a fit of arrogant anger; now the whole country pays a divine penance. It made sense, in a bedtime story sort of way, with a nice, well-defined set of morals: don’t dare presume that you are better than the gods, because you will pay the price.

But now that Arthur’s perception of the god is meshed with Merlin, the boy – being – he’d laughed with, joked with, tussled with, damn, _kissed_ with. The thought that such a human deity could condemn a whole nation like that, in cold blood, in a fit of impersonal, celestial rage -

The pang of betrayal is deep and insistent, that the god is the one who’s done – this, who’s lied to him about who he was, and Arthur doesn’t even know what to think anymore.

“Why?” he asks, and though his voice is hoarse, shaking, plaintive, Arthur can’t find it in himself to care.

The god is silent for a long, long moment before answering. “Because I was foolish, and gods make mistakes, too.”

“What mistake justifies _this?_ ” Arthur hisses, sweeping a hand towards the scenery about him. White, crystal snow, as far as he can see; though by the calendar it should be summer, green things growing in the fields, the air heavy with the fragrance of fruit and honeysuckle. Not this barren wasteland, not this perpetual winter. Emrys looks terribly sad, as he stares far, far away, some point in the night sky no mortal eyes can find.

“If I explain,” he says, at last. “Will you listen?”

“Explain,” Arthur says, and he does.

“I’ve always been known as a – lenient god,” Emrys begins. Arthur almost snorts at that, but he manages to hold himself in check – he doesn’t want to end up turned into a pig, or something worse. “You wouldn’t believe it, but it’s true. I loved mixing with humans, making friends among them – their lives burned so bright, so short, so amazingly colorful, and I didn’t want to be feared – I wanted to be understood. But no-one ever did, not really, because, well, I’m me,” Emrys waves a hand over himself, and for a split second, he shimmers into his true form – golden, brilliant, scintillating. Then he is Merlin again. “And they were – them. But then I met Will.”

William, Arthur remembers. The name of the high priest Uther slaughtered.

The reason – however indirect – for the curse.

“He was – gods, he was horrible.” Emrys laughs, helplessly, though it’s a twisted, grieving thing. “He insulted me the first day we met, called me a pompous beanhead or something like that. He treated me like a person, not a god, and he’d been the only one to actually try to defend me when something went wrong – most are just happy to cower behind.” Another laugh, though this one sounds more like a sob. “And I managed to wrangle him into the position of my high priest, and we got up to all these absurd antics. We were so – those were the golden times.” The god’s face is open and happy as Arthur has never seen him before, and he almost looks young, sweet, innocent, like the boy he looks like but truly is everything but. Arthur has a good inkling of what is coming up, so he bites his lip and grits, “then, my father. Yeah?”

“Yes. Then, Uther.” The air crackles, tenses, and it’s a moment before Arthur can begin to breathe again. “The purge was brutal. I convinced myself not to act – it is not the place for gods to meddle in human affairs, I’d thought; it was not my place to put a stop to it. But - even I am not all-powerful, Arthur. One moment, I have something to tend to somewhere else, the next moment, I have lost a friend, the only true one I had ever had. My grief was terrible. I might very well have torn the world apart, had the other gods not intervened.”

From anyone else, Arthur would have dismissed the words as hopeless bragging. From Emrys, though, from this god whom Arthur had seen in his wrath – the words ring with an inevitable sense of truth, and Arthur’s fists clench of their own accord.

_Would have torn the world apart._

Perhaps he should be grateful, after all.

“I’ve already told you – I was foolish, then. I convinced myself that I shouldn’t have held myself back, that I should have done something to stop it. I was furious; I would not let Uther walk away unscathed. So – the curse. I would stop it the moment Uther saw reason, I swore. But until then, I would have my revenge.”

“But he didn’t,” Arthur says, and Emrys shakes his head, rueful. “No.”

“You never said anything,” Arthur accuses, because it is the truth. He thinks someone would have beheaded the king and have the purge over and done with, had this story been known. But – no, Emrys had been silent.

Arthur doesn’t know if he could ever forgive that.

“I didn’t, because I was foolish and grieving and angry, and all I could think of was payback, payback, payback.” Emrys shrugs. “Even gods are not perfect, Arthur. Especially I. And I had had no intention of turning back, had never even second-guessed my actions, but then – you.”

“Me?” Arthur asks, confused. His tongue tastes like sandpaper in his mouth, heavy and bloated and rough. The god nods. “You. This young prince, riding out towards Ealdor – I was wary, at first. Wondered if you were going to pillage and destroy, if I would be forced to strike you down.”

A frission runs down Arthur’s spine. One wrong word, one lie gone awry, and – But Emrys must have caught on to Arthur’s apprehension, because he silences Arthur’s protests with a look and carries on. “But you were different. Honorable. You risked your life for your people’s. You risked everything for a chance to set things right, to atone for a sin that hadn’t even been yours. And then – I realized. That the ones suffering from my punishment hadn’t even been the ones in the wrong. That I had been wrong.” Emrys’ smile is wan. “Congratulations, Arthur. You are perhaps the first man to force me to see sense.”

But I don’t care, Arthur wants to say. But -

_But you let me think I was in love with you, only to show that it had been a lie all along._

Lies, lies, and more lies.

_A whole bloody castle built on lies._

It’s funny, Arthur thinks, that now that he’s come to his quest’s end – the only thing he can think of is the feel of Merlin’s lips on his own, and how he’ll never know Merlin again, leastways not the way he’d hoped to. There will be no tucking Merlin into bed, no spoiling him with treats from the kitchen, decadences no country boy would ever have had a chance to so much as glimpse, no lazy weekend lie-ins and no whispered confessions in the darkness of his room, because there was no Merlin to begin with; there had only ever been Emrys.

It hurts, way more than it has any right to be.

But Arthur hasn’t forgotten his duty to his people, either, so he manages:

“Will you fix it, then?”

Emrys must have read into what Arthur did not say, the hurt, the betrayal, the confusion, the ache, because he simply nods, and raises his hands, palms cupped as if to catch rainwater.

He blows into them.

It is like a warm caress and nothing like one, all at once. The air about him shimmers, glitters, an invisible pulse pushing out, out, out, and Arthur waits, breath catching at his throat, for a miracle in the making.

The snow melts, as far as Arthur’s eyes can see, and green, lush grass bursts out of the ground, every conceivable shade of green and beyond, trees sprouting out of no-where, laden heavy with sweet fruit and flowers. A rustling breeze races across the ground, warm and clear and sweet, and butterflies spring everywhere it touches, filling the air in iridescent multitudes, fluttering and dancing to some faraway tune.

Arthur is warm all of a sudden, uncomfortably so, and he rips off his over-coat, reveling in the feel of cushiony grass underneath him, the spring and give of ground once frozen hard and solid.

It is the most beautiful thing Arthur has ever seen, will ever see, and he weeps, silent, a single tear making its way down his face, then another, another.

Leon, roused from his sleep, gasps in awe, rubbing at his eyes as if to make sure it isn’t all some strange, twisted dream.

“It’s – we’ve done it,” Arthur exclaims, the tears adding a slight warble to his voice. He probably sounds ridiculous.

Arthur doesn’t care.

“Wait, where’s-” Leon turns, searching for Emrys. Arthur turns, too, realizing that he’d lost track of him in the initial excitement and wonder.

The god is nowhere to be seen.

8.

The trudge back to Camelot passes in a blur. He and Leon are late, and it’s probably obvious to anyone with two eyes and a brain that they’ve been up to no good, but Uther is surprisingly lenient.

“I see,” he says, to the gods-awful cock-and-bull story that Arthur and Leon cook up. (It involved an awful lot of bandits, fake leads, and adventure, and it was probably the most absurd story Arthur had ever heard. Well, no one had thought it prudent to educate the crown prince in storytelling, so Arthur is blaming this on them.)

Arthur isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he simply bows and back out. Later, lying in his chamber, Arthur wonders if Uther’s suspected a lot more than he’d let on.

He wouldn’t put it past his father.

Once Arthur finds his ground again after a dizzying parade of celebratory feasts, congratulations, and meddling nobles both malicious and well-meant, he heads towards the physician’s chambers. Gaius looks like he’s aged at least a decade over the time Arthur has been gone, and Arthur hangs his head for a moment, guilty.

He hadn’t thought how much others would worry when he’d gone gallivanting off to no-where. He won’t make the same mistake, now. He feels irrevocably changed, somehow, though sometimes the whole quest feels like some surreal dream.

He knows it’s not, though. He will never forget how Merlin – Emrys, he corrects himself furiously, Merlin is no more – tasted, the clear-cutting winds under the stars, the drowsy tale-telling about the campfire, the easy camaraderie, the blinding climax, wyverns and power that shook the very world, how Emrys’ breath had brought forth a thousand glittering butterflies that covered the sky.

He won’t.

But Arthur knows better than to trust his own memory, and Gaius has earned the right to know a dozen times over, so Arthur sits, nursing a flagon of the castle’s best, and talks.

It’s probably the most he’s ever talked in his life. Arthur had never been known much for his chatter, after all. It was unbecoming of a prince to seem flighty, fanciful, and so he had cultivated his silence, a weapon in its own right. Later, his voice ran hoarse, and his drunken ramblings began to lose sense even to him, but Gaius, always his rock, held him steady through the whole thing.

The first of the roosters are crowing outside by the time Arthur is done.

“You have saved Camelot, my boy,” Gaius says, as a hand comes up to cradle his chin, thoughtful. When he looks up, he meets Arthur’s eyes without flinching, and his mouth curves into a proud, indulgent smile. “This is a tale to be told till the end of time.”

“I don’t think I care, much,” Arthur admits, because Gaius is like a second father to him, and Gaius has a way of bringing out the embarassing truths in anyone – even a prince. “He – Merlin - ”

“It’s not often that a god takes such an interest in a mortal,” Gaius says, knowing. Arthur shakes his head bitterly, incensed all of a sudden.

“I wouldn’t call it an interest. It was all an act, wasn’t it?”

“If it were another god, I wouldn’t know. But it is Emrys, so I do not think so.”

Gaius’ finger sweeps over the illustration in his lore-book. The high cheekbones and stormy eyes are unmistakable, and Arthur can’t believe he hadn’t known. He feels like the fool, the clumsy mortal who had played along with this immortal god’s whims, and his pride smarts – resentment bubbles up from somewhere deep within him, even when a part of him knows, whispers, that perhaps it hadn’t been a joke to Emrys either, after all.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m just – another mortal to him, aren’t I? Here in a flash, gone in even less. It’s pathetic.”

Arthur prides himself on his ability to hold his ale, but he’s drunk much over the course of the night, and now the tipsiness has transformed into a dizziness that has him banging his head on Gaius’ table. His words feel like bits and pieces stuck in molasses, struggling down the back of his throat.

Gaius hums, contemplative, and reaches over the table to press a piece of paper into Arthur’s open palm. Arthur raises his head groggily to skim over the spidery writing. A ritual, it seems, to summon pagan gods.

Arthur crumples it in his hands, a barely-decipherable ball, but still – he can’t bring himself to get rid of it altogether. The candle-flame is so close, and it would be so, so easy, to close the distance, but -

He can’t.

Pathetic.

Gaius’ gaze follows him out of the chamber as Arthur stumbles out, heavy and knowing, and Arthur clenches his fist tighter, feeling the edges of the parchment dig into his calloused palm.

All it takes is a mention of that gods-forsaken man, and everything comes crashing down about his ears.

Arthur can’t decide what exactly the roiling in his gut means.

Months pass, and Arthur’s days only grow busier and busier. Arthur has taken over the training of the knights, now, and if he’s not out in the courtyard he’s in the council room, helping his father wrangle misbehaving lords into line and fending off ladies’ advances left and right. Morgana tells him that he struts so bad, he could be taken for a peacock in a pinch. Arthur jostles her in the ribs in retaliation, Morgana stomps on his foot when no-one is looking.

It’s good to know that some things never change.

At nights, though, there isn’t anything to distract Arthur from his thoughts, and his mind wanders back to that wintry plain when he’d last seen Merlin as that hapless, enigmatic country boy, when he’d seen Emrys for who he really was.

At first, it had been Merlin who had haunted his dreams, blue eyes pleading as the golden power of the god swallowed him whole. Arthur would call for him until his voice would go hoarse, begging him, pleading him not to go, as slowly, inexorably, Emrys took over, and Merlin was lost to him forevermore.

Later, though, Arthur would wake up in a sweat, heart beating, golden light seared into the back of his eye-lids, and if his hands were clammy with sweat it certainly wasn’t from fear.

Now, Arthur isn’t quite sure who he yearned for – Merlin or Emrys? Emrys or Merlin?

Could it even be both?

Arthur doesn’t know, and because there isn’t anyone Arthur could ask for counsel on this particular matter, he just gives up thinking and simply _yearns_.

The spell – or ritual, whatever to call it – involves a lock of his hair and a candle-flame. Arthur stands with a clump of his hair, burnished gold in the low light of his chambers, and stares, long and hard, into the flame of the candle by his bed.

_Not yet_ , he thinks, as he lets the strands scatter with the wind.

A year passes.

Winter comes again, and Camelot holds its breath, wondering how long this one would last. It lasts exactly as long as a winter ought to, and, as if apologizing for scaring them again, Emrys sends a particularly bountiful spring – the ground is so engorged with flowers that Arthur can barely take a step without crushing a bunch of them.

The castle girls are delighted, though, weaving wreaths and gifting them to whichever boy has caught their fancy, shrieking in joy as the race each other through the buttercups and daffodils and daisies, and Arthur supposes that’s good enough.

Morgana complains about how the pollen gets into her mouth and tastes like dust gone stale. Arthur tells her he won’t heed her, since she’s always complaining about this or that. Morgana gives him a knowing look, tells him to stop being a pathetic lovelorn bunny, and stomps away.

Arthur leaves her be.

Winter comes and goes again, and dawns into a mild spring, not as excessive as the previous year but unmistakably spring nonetheless.

Arthur stands in his chamber, barefoot, door barred, a single candle lit in the middle of the room.

Arthur stops for a moment, dagger in hand, then nods – _yes_.

He lets the fine strands of hair fall into the candle, mixed with a pinprick of blood from his finger, and thinks:

_Emrys. I am ready._

He feels the shift before he sees it.

He will never cease to marvel at how the mere presence of Emrys changes the very air of a room, how the world bends and sways to accommodate this all-encompassing presence, how the fires burn brighter, the shadows grow deeper. He opens his eyes, and looks.

The god’s hair is longer, now, curling freely about his ears. His eyes are the same storm-touched blue, his cheekbones a hint more hollowed, as if he’s been worn ragged by some worry or trifling care. A faintest blush tints his high cheekbones, his neck straight and long and white, and he stands, tentative, lingering at the borders of this world and another.

Arthur holds out his hand.

“Emrys,” he whispers, and the god smiles.

It is a sad smile, but it is more. Arthur reads new beginnings there, hope for a new dawn, an apology and a declaration of affection – no, something more than that, something Arthur would dare to call love – an _I missed you_ , written across his ageless face, clear as day.

“No,” he says, “it’s Merlin.”

When their lips meet, he tastes like thunder and lightning, rain and fresh earth, flowers and rushing rivers and the ebb and swirl of the tide.

But, above all, he is Arthur’s, now, and that’s all that really matters in the end.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone would be interested in a sequel where Merlin moves into Camelot disguised as Arthur's manservant, please let me know! (Also, if there's anything else you'd like to see in this 'verse, I'd love to know too.) I make no promises, but God!Merlin has me in its thrall nowadays, so..... :>


End file.
